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Topic: Last movie watched... (Read 897373 times)

While I agree entirely with the general sentiment, the movie's not about the space race, it's about Neil Armstrong and his part in it (although it does explicitly frame the methodology of the moon missions as a response to being hammered by the Soviets on every point - starting a new approach entirely from scratch so that the Russians' lead in all other areas is irrelevant).

tl;dr: He died for your sins, Bear! And it was the Jews that killed him!

Your comments are proof that the British Labour Party is riddled with... (spins wheel) antisemitism.

Rollerball (2004) - this film is not very entertaining, so now I want war with China. No wait that's for my review of Skyscraper, I meant: dang this is... okay?I'd heard this was terrible for various reasons such as director John McTiernan's original (and more violent) cut running to nearer two hours than this 90-minute theatrical version, the removal of any social commentary or satire from the script, and the setting being changed from future America to a fictional but contemporary Eastern European country, and fair enough the end result is a bit choppy in places, but otherwise it holds together pretty well and while not any kind of classic, I still think I enjoyed it more than the dull original, to which, if you squint a bit, this kind of works as a prequel, showing how a bunch of opportunistic scumbags accidentally luck into creating a crowd-pleasing bloodsport meant initially to placate downtrodden workers blowing off steam but finding a wider global audience thanks to innovations in streaming technology.As for "no social commentary or satire", the setup for the story is that a poverty-stricken kid flees the authorities in his homeland (America) and finds himself essentially cage fighting in the ruins of the Soviet Union in order to distract underpaid miners from their exploitation by corrupt police and politicians owned by gangsters, and the kid's life becomes imperiled when the game is rigged in order to help sell it to Americans - apart from the obvious critiques of the narrative-building of neo-American folklore and late stage capitalism inherent in a violent televised bloodsport based around wacky over the top characters, the implication is that Russian gangsters are influencing US society by promoting violent unrest via the internet (the movie ends with a likely-doomed violent riot by drunken workers), I mean... there's commentary here, and it's not exactly hard to find, I think reality may just have taken a decade and a half to catch up with satire is all.Chris "I have no idea who this is" Klein plays a pretty anodyne lead, LL Cool J does about as well as an actor as one might expect of a grown fucking man who calls himself LL Cool J, and Rebecca "I am not going to try spelling it and nor shall I google it" whatsername doesn't get much elbow room to act in a weird tough girl/helpless tottie flip-flop act, but pretty much nobody gets to do anything noteworthy, not even Jean Reno - though Naveen Andrews sort of seems like he's trying for a panto dame thing, which is commendable even if the script isn't going to help him out.

Passable and doesn't outstay its welcome. These days, I ask literally nothing more of a film.

So I've been watching the Indiana Jones films with the kids over the last few weekends when we've had time. The kids have loved them and had a right mard on when we're not had time to watch one... which I've been chuffed with ... except for the fact that .... well... I knew this moment would come.

I've not watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull since I first watched it when it came out. I've approached it with hope that maybe I was wrong, maybe I'm not doing it justice and maybe a second viewing, much later, with a fresh pespective on the world and entertainment I'd find I like it... or at least not hate it as much as I did...

...alas not... much as it warms the cockes that the kids love Indie almost as much as they love Star Wars, it breaks my heart that they haven't yet developed to realise that this, like the prequels is pretty much unwatchable tosh.

I mean its worse than I remember it! Why must my children love the bad with the good... when will I be free of Crystal Skulls and Phantom Menaces?

Ah it's not that bad, just not... good. By coincidence I rewatched it the other week too, and while I liked it quite a bit at the time, I find myself less and less enthused as the years pass. Its heart is in the right place, which is as a late '50s sequel to Raiders, rather than a 4th Indy movie, and it's hard to fault Ford and Allen's chemistry, but by heck is it let down by hopeless new characters and some dire, incomprehensible sequences.

Young Indy is fun, but the bizarrely re-edited DVD boxsets are hard to adapt to.

Ah it's not that bad, just not... good. By coincidence I rewatched it the other week too, and while I liked it quite a bit at the time, I find myself less and less enthused as the years pass. Its heart is in the right place, which is as a late '50s sequel to Raiders, rather than a 4th Indy movie, and it's hard to fault Ford and Allen's chemistry, but by heck is it let down by hopeless new characters and some dire, incomprehensible sequences.

Yeah the trouble is it tried to be a a 50s sci-fi B-movie AND the 4th Indy Film and as such a 30's adventure serial and thus didn't commit to either and therefore work as either. It needed to be bolder in its intent and ambition to change, or be commited to its origins. Rather it failed in both ways.

..ittried to be a a 50s sci-fi B-movie AND the 4th Indy Film and as such a 30's adventure serial and thus didn't commit to either and therefore work as either. It needed to be bolder in its intent and ambition to change, or be commited to its origins. Rather it failed in both ways.

Fair point, but I liked the alien aspect, I thought it was neat to just make a direct swap between God and his earthly leftovers and aliens and theirs, rather than changing genres. I liked seeing Indy dealing with the von Daniken version of archaeology instead of the Albright one, and in much the same way.

For me the failures weren't really thematic so much as too many awful set-pieces, unlikeable characters and frankly shoddy sets and CGI. The plot, the 50s window dressing and Indy's post-Crusade story I actually enjoyed.

I can always find something to enjoy in it, especially the Indy character moments. The film would be improved greatly without the dreadful mess that is "Mac".....and we could do without Oxley too for the most part. We end up with too many characters and it gets messy. The CGI jungle sequence is fairly ugly, though it ends well with the ant sequence.

Ultimately, it really falls down in the second half of the film, but I still have a soft spot for it. There is fun to be had if you don't take it too seriously.

If Serenity hadn't done that to me already, I'd probably agree with you.

Woah, what?

When Serenity came out my wife was more excited than I was I think. We had planned to spend the day at the cinema. We'd watch it 2 or 3 times that day. Then Whedon had the utter gall to kill Wash the way he did. My wife was in tears at the suddenness of it all. I wasn't far from it to be honest.

I think we've watched Serenity once since that day, although we'll happily watch Firefly.